Digit VA, 2022

Object
Ceramics, Glass
300x300x500mm

On view during Group Show Multilogue-Digital at Mouches Volantes, Cologne, Germany.

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Last summer I visited the Romano-Germanic Museum. I was especially astonished by the Cage Cup {Diatretglas}.

A glass object found buried alongside a body of a roman cemetery in Cologne. A burial good, inscribed with the message Drink, live well, forever. {Trinke, lebe schön, immerdar.}  It became a central point of inspiration for the presented object Digit V-a. Not only as a visual reference, but questioning its manufacturing process and context as well.
How did the diatrearii {the carvers} manufacture the Cage Cup in the first place? How did they construct the drinking vessel, revealing the net structure as a particular character to the object? A seemingly digitally manipulated object, setting a precedent for itself. Digit V-a is a physical manipulation, constructed through an assemblage of digiti {fingers}. They compose a fifth-digit net, posited as consuming mouths, expelling and reaching upwards, attracting and ensnaring prey.